Power converters are widely used in electronics to convert an electrical input voltage from a source to a suitable amount of output voltage at a destination load. In addition, power converters may convert an AC voltage to a DC voltage since electronic devices often require DC power. For example, a power converter may convert a voltage from a main power grid (e.g., accessed from an AC power plug from a wall socket) to an appropriate amount of DC voltage and/or current for powering an electronic device (e.g., a laptop, a mobile phone, etc.).
Power converters may have certain drawbacks. One drawback is that different electronic devices may have different voltage requirements and a single power converter may not satisfy all of the requirements of all the different devices. For instance, a laptop computer may require a higher amount of power (e.g., sixty watts) during operation than the amount of power required by a mobile phone (e.g., ten watts). The power converter used to operate the mobile phone may not provide a sufficient amount of voltage to operate the laptop and the power converter used to operate the laptop may provide too much voltage and overpower the mobile phone. A further drawback is that the physical size of a converter may vary depending on the power requirements of a destination device. For instance, since a laptop may generally require a larger amount of voltage, the electronic circuitry in a laptop power converter may be larger and more complex than the electronic circuitry found in a suitable converter (e.g., a “plug-size” adapter) used to charge a mobile phone. Another drawback of power converters is that some converters only have single output port capability, that is, a single output port converter can only provide an amount of voltage to one device at a time. Even if a converter provides multiple output ports, a multiple output port converter may only provide simultaneous and equal amounts of voltage to multiple devices that share the same voltage requirements.